Mark Webber emerged victorious from a dramatic Hungarian Grand Prix and surged to the top of the standings in the race for the drivers' title after previous leader Lewis Hamilton was forced to retire.

It was the Australian's fourth win of the season but he was indebted to the deployment of the safety car after 14 laps as debris from Vitantonio Liuzzi's Force India car had to be cleared from the Hungaroring.

The Red Bull driver eventually finished ahead of Ferrari's Fernando Alonso and team-mate Sebastian Vettel, who was third despite once again starting from pole position.

Hamilton suffered a gearbox failure on lap 24, to leave Webber four points clear of the 2008 world champion, with Vettel a further six points adrift.

When the safety car came on to the track, most drivers, apart from Webber, changed their tyres.

Mercedes' pit crew failed to correctly fit Nico Rosberg's right rear tyre and, as the German pulled out onto the pit lane the tyre worked loose and bounced its way through the other pit crews.

Renault's Robert Kubica was then released too early by his lollipop man and ran into the side of Force India's Adrian Sutil who was forced to retire while Kubica received a ten-second stop-go penalty for an unsafe release from the pits.

Rosberg also had to retire as he was only on three wheels to add to the drama.

Vettel was then handed a drive-through penalty after allowing the gap to Webber to exceed ten car lengths, which is against the regulations, and which ultimately cost him at least second place.

Webber eventually won by 17.8 seconds and, further down the field, Felipe Massa was fourth and Renault's Vitaly Petrov fifth.

Williams' Nico Hulkenberg was sixth, while Pedro De La Rosa was seventh in his Sauber.

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